Posts from Healthy Living

Generally speaking, I try not to eat sandwiches for lunch. I’m not carbo-phobic, but bread is one of the densest sources of calories among my usual lunch options. Sometimes, though, I get a strong sandwich craving. When that happens, I try to split the difference between sandwich and no-sandwich by making it open-faced, one piece of toast with the ingredients on top, eaten with a knife and fork.

Winter storms have a way of making me want to cook something that has me over the stove for a good stretch of time. I love a fish stew, but these days you need to be careful if you want to make environmentally responsible seafood choices. The lists of what's sustainable and fine to fish versus what's not can shift often. I also wanted a dish with some heat and depth, without being too thick and heavy — no cream, this isn't a time for chowder. The result? This sustainable seafood stew.

I'm afraid you're about to make your neighbors very jealous. They will smell this cooking as they walk up to, and then pass by, your door — forced to smell those aromas of garlic, chicken, and cumin, all without getting a single bite.

You, and only you, will get to come home from work, take a bowl from the cupboard, and proceed immediately to the table without even needing to turn on the stove. It's white chicken chili for dinner tonight, my friends! Inviting the neighbors is up to you.

Sautéed broccoli slaw topped with spaghetti sauce and a handful of cooked pasta.

Poor pasta. That most comforting of comfort foods has really had some bad press in recent years. If you’re going gluten free, or paleo, or just following the common sense advice to eat less refined flour, pasta is not on the menu as much anymore.

When I first cut back on it, I missed its ease. Pasta night is a delicious breeze of a weeknight meal. But then I discovered a use for pasta that can be summed up in one word: croutons.

I'm always looking for an easy, fast low-carb breakfast but given the frenetic pace of life — I often joke my hobby is rushing — it's hard to resist the ease, portability, and affordability of carbs. However, I recently discovered a low-carb breakfast that works: soup — particularly fitting since The Kitchn is celebrating soup this month.

If you know me just barely, you know that I'm summer's biggest fan, and after 20 winters in the Northeast, I still moan and groan over winter's double-whammy: no fresh vegetables in season and freezing temperatures. So today, in frigid Brooklyn, I give you a piece about a hot tomato soup a friend brought back from a recent trip to Egypt. For me, tomato soup is summer food at its best, but a can of quality tomatoes can evoke fond memories of July and August, when the sun shines and the muscles are more relaxed.

It was a couple of years ago that I first heard about bagged broccoli slaw. I was paging through a new cookbook and came across a recipe that I wanted to make; it called for bagged broccoli slaw and I actually didn’t know what it even was. I had to Google it to learn it’s a package of grated broccoli stems, carrots, and sometimes cabbage. I found it up among the other pre-fab produce items I gloss over because I don’t usually buy them: stir-fry vegetable mixes, already cooked beets, peeled garlic cloves.

Some people just hate recipes. As a recipe lover and recipe developer, I try not to take this fact too personally. And I get it: especially on a weeknight, reading and following a recipe can require more concentration and focus than you have left. I have those times, too, and it’s then that I like to be on kitchen autopilot, making something so familiar to me that the few steps are programmed in my muscle memory.

A recipe is definitely not a part of this picture, but to get to the place where you can turn out a good meal without thinking, you need at your disposal a collection of what I call “dinner templates.” Without them, I would be going out to eat or ordering take out much more often. With them, I can keep my health and weight loss efforts on track.

I have been known to say that any cookbook is a weight loss book, because I strongly believe that cooking for yourself at home is the best way to lose weight. I know this axiom isn’t totally accurate (hey, Paula Deen!), but it contains a lot of truth.

Another reason I like to issue this advice is that I’ve seen weight loss and home cooking goals evaporate in the face of recipes that are engineered to be low-cal, low-fat, and low-sodium. Those recipes can also be incredibly low-flavor. Regardless of how "good" the nutrition facts of a dish are, it doesn’t benefit your health or your weight loss efforts if you don’t eat it, or if you’re snacking an hour later because dinner didn’t satisfy.